David McElroy

I don’t know this person, but I’d say this is the kind of thinking that’s going to save the next generation, not the thinking of those who borrowed foolishly and are now angry that they’re in debt.

There was a time when this sort of thinking was ubiquitous in America (and probably around the world). But as people came to depend on governments — believing that they could demand whatever they wanted from the state and that the state would provide — this sort of thinking went out of style.

It’s about being reasonable. It’s about being responsible. It’s about being independent. It needs to make a comeback, starting right now.

If you have a young child in Europe and allow him to blow up a balloon or blow on a party whistle, you might just be a criminal under new safety rules handed down by the EU Nanny State.

You know that thing kids like to blow on and it makes a thing sort of like a tongue roll out? (I have no idea what it’s called.) That thing’s banned, too, for all kids under the age of 14.

When I oppose giving bureaucrats the power to make up rules for us to live our lives by, I frequently make up examples of things such bureaucrats could do with their power. And I ask, “Would you like it if they made up a rule about what color you could paint your house?” Or whatever. The response is always the same. “You’re just being silly,” they say. “They’d never do that.”

But as people grow comfortable with the idea that bureaucrats have the power to rule their lives, the bureaucrats do take more and more and more of these absurdities and turn them into reality. What starts off as absurd hyperbole or even satire ends up turning into reality. Parents are no longer exercising their judgment about what’s safe. Games that have been safe and reasonable for generations are suddenly banned or made hard to get.

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I thought some of the signs at Tea Party rallies represented sheer ignorance, but the Occupy Wall Street protesters are giving them a run for their money. These people know their trendy brands and piercings, but they know nothing about economics.

Take this guy on the right. Please take him. Can you think of any rational argument that Wall Street is responsible for “most of the poverty and suffering on this planet”? I can’t. I can usually take the flip side of almost any argument and find an approach to make case. There’s just not a rational argument for this one.

When the federal government and the Fed poured money into Wall Street banks in the past few years, it was wrong. Those firms should have been allowed to fail. That’s what makes the market work correctly — the fact that if you perform poorly, you fail. But the politicians in DC got scared and pulled their friends out of hot water. So why aren’t the people on Wall Street protesting against the politicians and the Federal Reserve? They’re the ones with the real power.

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